Forgotten Electronic Stores - The World has a Short Term Memory

Most of us are aware of today's big name electronic stores.

Of course I'm talking about....

Best Buy

You can purchase just about anything that you can think at Best Buy as long as it's electronic, relating to offices, movies or music, and easy to use.

Source: Forbes.com

I actually worked at Best Buy about 20 years ago.

Best Buy was supposed to be a place that you could go to and not get hassled by salespeople.

The commercials all said something to the effect of....

"When you're ready just come and get us, our salesmen we will never hassle you with in your face policies."

Of course that didn't last very long. The moment you walk into Best Buy you are swarmed by people in all kinds of different departments.

The other big name store that you are no doubt familiar with is....

Fry's Electronics

Fry's is the place to go if you want to find a part that is a little bit less known.

For example, you might be able to find a motherboard and processor at Fry's whereas you wouldn't be able to find those products at Best Buy.

Source: En.wikipedia.com

I've built countless computers using parts that were purchased at Fry's Electronics.

Fry's is much bigger than Best Buy and you can really get lost in there. It's a good kind of lost though, assuming that you like computers and electronics.

Of course Fry's sells more than just computer parts.

You can also buy movies, music, chairs, speakers, and just about any other kind of electronic device that you can think of.

Best Buy came into existence in 1983 but I don't remember seeing one until the early 90's.

Fry's started to appear all over the place in 1985.

So which electronic stores existed before Best Buy and Fry's?

I remember quite well.

However, most people that have talked to seem to have no recollection of these stores whatsoever.

Highland Superstores

Highland Superstores was the very first electronic store that I ever visited.

Source: Estatesale.com

Most of the stores that are now Best Buy here in Texas were actually Highland Superstores.

The very first computer that I ever bought was purchased at Highland Superstores.

It was an IBM clone that cost about $600 and had already something like 600 games installed on it.

I bought this computer when I was a sophomore in high school with the money that I earned at my part time job.

The reason that this unit had so many games installed on it is because the employees working at Highland Superstores were fond of me so they wanted to do me a favor by giving me a display system with all of their favorite games already included.

After Highland there was a store called....

Federated Electronics

Federated doesn't even appear to have a Wikipedia page.

Source: Dailybreeze.com

I don't remember much about Federated except that there were quite a few of them in our state.

I think I stepped foot in one of them once upon a time but I never really had much need to go there.

I'm fairly certain that Federated started failing when stores like Best Buy and Fry's were starting their rise to fame.

Of course, there is one more store that I bet some of you actually do remember.

This time I'm talking about....

Incredible Universe

All of the Incredible Universe stores around here have now been converted into Fry's Electronics.

Incredible Universe was actually very similar to Fry's.

Source: That401ksite.com

I bought my second computer at Incredible Universe.

It was an Intel Pentium and at the time I thought it was really fast.

Incredible Universe was always very crowded and it really wasn't a good time going there.

You can see from the following picture Incredible Universe and Fry's use the same building.

Source: Everystockphoto.com

The main thing that I remember from Incredible Universe is that the McDonald's inside served pizza.

So as you can see here, we have a total of five electronic stores.

Everybody knows about the first two, Best Buy and Fry's Electronics.

Most of you should also remember the last one, Incredible Universe.

Do you remember Highland Superstores though?

Do you remember Federated Electronics?

Of course there are many electronic stores from the past that I didn't mention here but I'm mainly interested in the ones that I used to visit frequently in order to purchase computer parts.

I hope that you enjoyed this post.

This was a long one so I hope that you will upvote and resteemit it.

Goodbye everybody!